Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Goodwill Church
The Colden Store had been closed for four days prior to this Sunday, 250 years-ago. Colden rarely opened his store on Sundays, and today was one of those rare occasions. His customers were Abraham Hennion (Hanyon, Henyon), Johannes Milspaugh, James Kain (Cain), and Benjamin Constable.
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| Goodwill Church in 2010. |
The reasons for opening the Store on a Sunday are not apparent. Perhaps it was a courtesy to a customer that happened to be passing by on travels to and from church? Or perhaps it was not that much of an inconvenience to open it for a few minutes if the store location was close to Colden's home, which I believe it was. It certainly does not appear that the items purchased were urgently needed.
Sundays were special days for worship and Colden normally recognized that by not doing business on Sunday.
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This article is one in a series of a daily accountings of Colden Store transactions. Be sure you read the first installment for an introduction to the store. You should also read this article which appeared in the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society.
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The area around the store was served by at least four churches. The Presbyterians had the Goodwill Church which had its own structure on the road between Colden's store and the Wallkill River. The Episcopalians worshiped at St. Andrew's Church which had a new structure on the road between the Colden Store and the Ten Brook's junction with the Wallkill. The German settlement had their own congregation which met close to where the bridge crossed the Wallkill. The Dutch had their Reformed Church which had a new congregation just east of the Wallkill that would be eventually known as 'New Hurley.'
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| 1798 Galatian map of Montgomery with churches circled. Note that the home of only one of the four shoppers of this day (Milspaugh) is shown. The Milspaugh homes are show on the west of the Wallkill and are underlined in red. The Constable family also lived in the same area. The Hennions lived between the store and the Falls on the Wallkill (where the Kidd homes are located). The location of the Kain farm is unknown to the author. |
Unfortunately many records of the Goodwill Church are lost. For example, my relative, Jemima Campbell, attempted to find records of her wedding for a pension application in 1842. She had been married to Joseph Tice at Goodwill in about 1785. The son of the Reverend Andrew King, confessed the records of his father from this period were missing.
Here are some on-line sources you might use in researching this church:
1. Dickson, James Milligan, The First 150 years of the Goodwill Presbyterian Church, 1880.
2. A searchable transcription of partial records of the church in the possession of the Town of Montgomery Historian (322 entries) - http://www.orangecountyhistoricalsociety.org/Goodwill-Church-Register.html
3. Cemetery headstones -Interment.net
4. The Churchyard Records of Goodwill Presbyterian Church, 1959.
5. Foley, Janey Wethy, Early Settlers of New York State: their Ancestors and descendants, 1934 see Vol III No. 1,2,3,4.
Note that there is some overlap in these records, but the uniqueness of each source suggests that the record is very incomplete.
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On this Sunday, 250 years-ago, it is unclear if and where the shoppers may have worshiped on that day. Colden's loyalty was to St. Andrew's Church so it is expected that he had spent time at that location. Some 'Milspaughs' were admitted to the Goodwill Church in the 1770s and 80s and some buried there in the 1800s, but the name is a prolific one and undoubtedly can be found in all of the local churches records. The names 'Constable', 'Kain', and 'Hennion' were not found in the Goodwill records cited above.More on the other churches will appear in future blogs.
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